Opinion
No. 2011–398 K C.
2012-04-4
CROWN REALTY, LLC, Respondent, v. Linzy FORD, Appellant, and Karen Ford, Undertenant.
Present: PESCE, P.J., GOLIA and ALIOTTA, JJ.
Appeal from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Kings County (Oymin Chin, J.), entered February 3, 2011. The order denied tenant's motion to vacate a final judgment entered pursuant to a stipulation of settlement in a nonpayment summary proceeding.
ORDERED that the order is affirmed, without costs.
In this nonpayment proceeding, the parties entered into a stipulation of settlement on December 2, 2010, which provided, among other things, that landlord would be awarded a final judgment and warrant, with execution of the warrant stayed to January 15, 2011 on condition that tenant make various payments. Upon a default in making the payments, landlord could execute upon the warrant of eviction. After failing to comply with the terms of the stipulation of settlement, tenant moved to vacate the final judgment. The Civil Court denied the motion.
Settlement stipulations are favored and will not be undone absent proof that the settlement was obtained by fraud, collusion, mistake, accident or other grounds sufficient to invalidate a contract ( see Hallock v. State of New York, 64 N.Y.2d 224 [1984];Matter of Frutiger, 29 N.Y.2d 143 [1971] ). As tenant did not set forth any proper basis to invalidate the stipulation, the Civil Court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in denying tenant's motion to vacate the final judgment.
Accordingly, the order is affirmed.